This book is called Teaching English: 25 ESL PowerPoint Ideas That Get Students Talking. You can buy it right now on Amazon or Smashwords for $3.99 and it’ll be available on iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and many other retailers in another week. So what’s this book about? Well, anyone visiting this site has surely read about some of the wonderful ESL PPTs that are here, and this book talks about 25 of them. What’s more, there are links to 10 of the ESL PowerPoints, and you can get those for free right here on the site. Well, if I can get them for free, then why bother buying the book? It’s a good question, and I figure this way you have all of the information in one place and don’t have to look through the nearly 150 blog posts I have on this site. There are also many free ESL PowerPoints in the book that aren’t on this site, like the following one about your very first ESL lesson. That’s right, remember way back when you gave that lousy affair? I mean, if yours was anything like mine, it was rubbish! That’s why when I went to China my second year abroad I was prepared, and had a great introductory lesson.

aLL aBOUT yOU

When you first start teaching ESL you’re going to want to tell your students a bit about you. I did this my first year, and it was just awful. I didn’t even have a PPT, I did it with a crappy Word document!

By the time my second year rolled around I’d learned my lesson, and had a great introductory ESL PowerPoint prepared that told my students all about me, but a whole lot more as well. You can get this PPT free on my site, and I’ve even made a cool template for you so that you can stick your pictures in there and then just change the text around. That should save you a lot of time, which when you’re just starting out in your new country, you’ll want more of to do fun things, not worry about class. Let’s go through several of the Introductory Lesson’s slides and see how it can help you.

lAYING dOWN THE LAW

I had a tough time teaching my first year in China. This was partly because my students were young and partly because I had 50 of them in a class. But it was also partly due to my own inexperience and inability to be tough and firm. I didn’t make that mistake my second year, and the very first slide of this Introductory PPT lays down the rules.

You can see that there are 6 basic rules there, and I had the students read these out loud. In the next slide I went even further.

Here are 6 things I expected from my students. These were grade 7, 8 and 9 students so there were really no excuses for them messing around all the time. And they loved that last point when it came up. I had a lot more respect from them that year, and I can’t help but think it’s because I was upfront about what I expected, both from them and from myself.

INTRODUCING YOURSELF

After that you’re going to want to introduce yourself. The best way to do this is to talk with the students, but having some basic information for others to read is great. All students learn differently. Some learn by listening to you talk, others by reading, and still others by watching or doing. Few learn the same way so you have to give them options.

This slide is good because it presents basic info that you or they can read. My students really got a lot of laughs out of the height and weight measurements too.

You’re going to want to talk a bit about your family, and showing pictures is great. Most people in China are quite slim, so if you can get some ‘bigger’ pictures like that of my dad you’ll certainly have some things to talk about for a few minutes.

After that it’s good to talk about where you’re from. I give some basic information and then talk a bit. See, with your introductory lesson you’re probably going to be doing most of the talking. This isn’t a bad thing. Students are nervous, you’re nervous – it’s good to break the ice. And the more you can make them laugh with your words or pictures, the easier that’ll be.

sHOWING WHERE YOU'RE FROM

In this PPT I have about 5 or 6 pictures of my home state and I suggest you do the same with wherever you’re from.

I like to do full-pictures on most slides, but these half-shots are great because you can add some easy text in there. There are lots of options, and the more pictures you do the more time you’ll kill. Your students will start to get bored, however, if you do too many.

HIGHLIGHTING YOUR EXPERIENCE

If you have previous teaching experience I’d highlight it. I did this PPT my second year teaching ESL so I had quite a few pictures to show my new students of my old students.

If you have pictures of friends back home or jobs you did, these are also good things to put in. And remember, the sillier, or perhaps more embarrassing, the better. Here’s a real doozy from English Week my first year:

sHARING YOUR INTERESTS

Your students will be interested in what you like to do, so you’re going to want to include quite a few slides about that. If you’ve travelled a bit you’ll also want to include information about that. What’s so great about this Introductory Lesson is that you’ll get a ton of ideas for your later lessons. See, when you get a good reaction from some of your pictures or some of the things you say, make a mental note of that. Obviously your students are interested when that happens, and that’s the first step in making a good ESL Lesson. I can’t tell you how many times I had bad days because I made lessons on things that I thought were cool but bored them.

The more pictures you show the better. I won’t bore you with all of mine here, but you can see what I did if you check out this PPT on my website. I did this lesson only one year, my last year in public schools, and it worked well. I got a full week out of it, then did it a bunch the next week with classes I hadn’t had yet. I had it prepared before I even got back to China, so I had lots of time to explore my new area. I urge you to make your own Introductory Lesson like this one, as your students will love learning about you and it’ll give them an idea of what the PowerPoints in your class are going to be like all year long. So what are you waiting for? Buy Teaching English today for 24 more awesome ESL PowerPoints!

These PPTs of course work great if you have a big monitor in the room like this one.

Some really great ideas there, Greg. Did you actually have a projector in your classroom? Cause here in Germany, you have to request a projector from the media room and are stuck with an overhead projector and transparencies in most of the classrooms.

Reply

Greg Strandberg

2/4/2014 11:28:06 am

Hey, Cora.

I put this picture above the comments. All the public schools I knew of in major cities had large TV monitor things in the classrooms.

Training centers usually had something similar, if not better Interactive Whiteboard technology.

Sometimes I forget that many other countries might not have similar.

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Greg Strandberg

From 2008 to 2013 I was an ESL teacher in Shenzhen, China. I've worked in public schools, training centers, and one-on-one as a tutor.

This site is designed to help new teachers, or teachers that are struggling. You'll find free PowerPoints and free advice.

If you'd like to see what I do when I'm not giving ESL teaching advice, check out my writing website or some of my books below.